Interview: Anders Østergaard and Joshua on "Burma VJ"

Thursday, January 22, 2009 | 2:02 PM

01212009_burmavj1.jpgBy Alison Willmore

It's easy to overlook "Burma VJ" in the Sundance line-up -- a documentary about Burmese reporters risking their lives to report on the conditions within their closed country sounds like the type of earnest, pedagogic film that offers up a pressing issue for audiences to tsk about and then forget after leaving the theater. But to preemptively classify it as so is to do "Burma VJ" a terrible disservice. The film, assembled by Danish director Anders Østergaard primarily from handheld camera footage shot during the 2007 anti-government protests, is an astounding journey through the exhilaration and terrible danger of the first major protests in the country since the 1988 pro-democracy demonstrations that ended in thousands being killed by the military junta. "Burma VJ" is filtered through the perspective of a young journalist given the pseudonym "Joshua," who's part of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a media organization that circumvents the government-controlled news by smuggling their footage out of the country to Oslo, where it's broadcast via satellite. In 2007, it was the DVB's coverage of the protests that reached international outlets like the BBC and brought global attention to a nation in which traditional media coverage has long been impossible. I had a chance to talk with Østergaard and Joshua about the conditions in Burma and the difference between filmmaking and journalism.

How did "Burma VJ" begin?

Anders Østergaard: I was invited to do a film on Burma three or four years ago. We had some early thoughts of trying to portray this closed country from life on the borderline -- people going in and out -- to reflect what was going on in there. It was maybe too conceptual. I was looking for more concrete people, so to speak, and during that process, we became aware that a lot of people are trying to shoot inside the country, many of them regular citizens. We realized that next door to us in Norway there was actually a TV station broadcasting reports that were smuggled out of the country. For me, it seemed like a perfect platform to make a film about the country: not just the footage, but also the people who were actually doing this: why, how and what went through their head. I went to see a group of reporters who came out to be trained in Thailand. Through the course of that, I met Joshua, who understood intuitively what we were trying to do and was very generous about trying to describe how life as a secret reporter really is. That got us started, way before the uprising. I was planning to do a short documentary, a human interest, intimate thing about his life and thoughts and then it exploded into a much bigger story in all respects.

When did the decision come about for the majority of the film to be footage that was shot by the reporters?

01212009_burmavj2.jpgAO:That was born into the project from the beginning, even in the small format. My approach was that the film should be based on the footage, but with an audio soundtrack that would give more insight. That survived into the ultimate film, as we developed these reconstructed conversations, telephone conversations. That's really the spinal cord of the film when you look at it, the understanding of dramatic developments.

And the choice to filter the point of view through Joshua, even as he's removed from the main setting of the action and forced to stay in Thailand?

AO: Of course, first we thought, "Well, our main character has left the scene," which was a bit awkward. [laughs] We really had no choice. [to Joshua] You did, as you said yourself, take a little bit too much of a risk and had to escape. But we slowly realized that it was actually quite a gift, that we had this guy who was trying to follow what was happening inside because we could hold his hand, trying to understand what was going on. And I learned that this distance had some tremendous suspense value, that we are with him trying to find out what's happening over there, which became the dynamic of the film.

Joshua, how long ago did you first get involved with the DVB?

Joshua: I first worked with the DVB during 2003, and I became one of the first cameramen on the ground. But I got my first professional training as a cameraman in Bangkok, in 2005, I first met with [the "Burma VJ" filmmakers]. I didn't really know at the time how big this project was, and what I had to do at the time. [It was] just an assignment from my college. They just introduced me to these people, and I talked with them. That's all I knew about, at the time. But after I'd seen their demo about what they had done on the project, I thought I really had to go on... I mean, I need to talk for everybody, not only for me, not only for our group, but also for everybody in Burma.

I'm sure for anyone who sees the film, the major question is one of where things are now, given that at the end, everyone has had to scatter and contact has been lost with a lot of the reporters you worked with.

J: I got into Burma again to build a new network, and now we have an even stronger one than before. I believe that we sacrificed a lot during September 2007, and it was not a waste.

You express in the film a fear that people outside are forgetting what the situation is in Burma. What do you hope of people who see this documentary?

01212009_burmavj3.jpgJoshua: Yeah, it's all about news. Because I am working with the news, I understand that people will focus on something happening, but when everything is quiet, they have chance to forget. They have chance to forget about what happened. So this documentary is one that can make people remember, and I believe that people will know we are still there and we still need help. A documentary is different than the news. Documentaries are things that makes people think, so they will have more understanding after this, I believe.

Anders, I suppose have the same question for you, what would you hope of people who are watching this film, experiencing that difference between immediate news footage that has made it onto the networks and the more measured experience of a documentary?

AO: It's all about relating, that you can relate to Burma's conditions somehow, that we can make the things, the thoughts these guys have and what they're going through universal rather than being exotic, rather than being about a remote place where some monks are walking about, finding some generals. We get empathy with what it is like to be a freedom fighter, if you like, and also to maybe develop the thought that "Hey, maybe I would do that same thing if I was in the same situation." It's not a special breed of people doing this. Normal human beings need freedom so much that they will do these things eventually if conditions force them to it. So I was anxious to make it universal thing and a thing you can relate to.

I apologize for this ignorance on my part, but the monks, who played a major role in the uprising, first became involved in the protests, was there a particular incident that brought them in or had they just decided that it was time to join the political fight?

J: There was a case in central Burma [in which] some monks got out on the street to protest against the military because they wanted to represent the people of that area who were suffering and starving, and they were beaten up by military. They demanded an apology, according to the Buddhist rule. So it was the religious thing in the beginning, but at the time, there were some small groupings already all over the country, so later they organized [made] it to a political move. They knew they really needed to do it because they were getting less and less food. Buddhist monks are the people who get the best things in Burma, but even they were receiving not enough food and other donations, so they realized the country's situation was getting worse and worse and decided it was the time for them to do something.

01212009_burmavj4.jpgAO: Also, they're the only organization of any kind to articulate opposition. Of course, we have the NLD, which was the official opposition organization spearheaded by Aung San Suu Kyi, but they were out of the game for a good while and have really not many ways to make progress. Somehow the monks, I think, realized they could open a new front by applying themselves to politics. I think that a lot of these monk leaders are quite politically aware, have been for a long while, and are also looking for the moment to do their bit.

J: Yeah, I mean the small groups, they intended to do something like this. They were very organized at the time and just waiting for the spark.

Anders, you'd mentioned that audiences have been asking more about the situation documented in the film than the film itself. It's often the great debate of documentary film: Is it filmmaking or is it journalism? Where does that meet for you and where does craft come in versus subject matter?

AO: The first thing I would say is ["Burma VJ"] is not journalism because we're not serving those criteria of objectivity. I couldn't do the reconstruction thing if I was on a journalistic contract with the audience. To me, creative documentary is there to offer a different kind of insight on top of the news. It's somewhere in between dramatic film and journalism. I'm a trained journalist myself and I have a journalistic drive, but I really...I try to get as much freedom as I can to take documentary material from the real world from the sort of footage, the kind you saw, to reconstruct how it was to be a reporter at the time, taking the liberties I need in order to offer you that insight. So I'm quite far away from journalism in that respect, because of those liberties I need to take in order to offer you a cinematic experience.

I've seen a lot of documentaries lately that end with "For more, visit www... to see how you can help." Do you see this film as that kind of direct tool?

AO: I don't know. I didn't go into this project because I was a Burma activist or even a political activist. It's not really in my blood really, to be an activist. I was interested in it almost existentially, at least in the fact that these guys are doing it. Why do we need to do stuff like that in order to feel? In order to feel alive, to touch the world, to know you're here, you have to document it or do something about it. You cannot just grow old with things being the way they are. You have to do something, and that existential drive is really what turned me on to this project beyond politics. But of course, it's very satisfying to feel that you can do something useful in order to fight this horrifying machine.


[Photos: "Burma VJ," director Anders Østergaard, First Hand Films, 2008]

"Burma VJ" will open in New York in May.

http://www.ifc.com/film/film-news/2009/01/interview-1.php